Ning is an online social media network platform for people and organizations to create custom social networks.Social Graph-iti
The Economist, Oct 18, 2007 Ning was co-founded by

Marc Andreessen Marc Lowell Andreessen ( ; born July 9, 1971) is an American entrepreneur, investor, and software engineer. He is the co-author of Mosaic, the first widely used web browser; co-founder of Netscape; and co-founder and general partner of Silicon ...

and

Gina Bianchini Gina Bianchini (born 1972) is an American entrepreneur and investor. She is the Founder & CEO of Mighty Networks. Early life and career She grew up in Cupertino, California, graduated with honors from Stanford University, started her career ...

and launched in October 2005. By June 2011 there were over 90,000 social websites running on the Ning Platform.With Revenue Up 400%, Ning Adds Paid Access Service
Tomio Geron, Forbes, June 15, 2011

History

Ning started development in October 2004 and launched its platform publicly in October 2005.
by Martin LaMonica, CNET news, Oct 6, 2005 At its launch, Ning was a free-form platform for the development and hosting of open-source "social applications". The source code for Ning applications was available to users so that anyone could

fork In cutlery or kitchenware, a fork (from la, furca 'pitchfork') is a utensil, now usually made of metal, whose long handle terminates in a head that branches into several narrow and often slightly curved tines with which one can spear foods ei ...

a Ning application, modify its PHP code and run it as their own. In late September 2006, Ning narrowed its focus to offering a group website, a photos website, and a videos website for people to copy and use for any purpose. These three templates were later superseded by a single customizable application aimed at enabling anyone to easily create their own social network. This format proved popular amongst groups who wanted to create social media communities away from the popular platforms. Ning was initially funded internally by Bianchini, Andreessen and

angel investors An angel investor (also known as a business angel, informal investor, angel funder, private investor, or seed investor) is an individual who provides capital for a business or businesses start-up, usually in exchange for convertible debt or owners ...

. In July 2007, Ning raised

US$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

44 million in

venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which ha ...

, led by

Legg Mason Legg Mason was an American investment management and asset management firm headquartered in Baltimore, founded in 1899 and acquired by Franklin Templeton Investments as of July 2020. As of December 31, 2019, the company had $730.8 billion in asse ...

.Ning news: new investment round
, by Marc Andreessen, blog.pmarca.com, Jul 9, 2007 In 2008 and 2009, the company announced it had raised an additional US$75 million in capital.
, by Marc Andreessen, April 18, 2008Ning Raises $15 Million More at a–Yes, Really–$750 Million Valuation
by Kara Swisher, AllThingsD.com, July 21, 2009 On April 15, 2010, CEO Jason Rosenthal announced that the free service would be suspended, and 41% of the employees would be

laid off A layoff or downsizing is the temporary suspension or permanent termination of employment of an employee or, more commonly, a group of employees (collective layoff) for business reasons, such as personnel management or downsizing (reducing the ...

. Users of the free service had the option to either upgrade to a paid account or transition their content from Ning. In 2011, Ning was purchased by

Glam Media Glam.com (formerly Mode Media, Inc. Project Y, Glam Media) was a digital lifestyle media company where content was produced by anyone but reviewed by professional editors prior to publishing. In 2013, Mode Media had a valuation of about $1 billio ...

and then officially acquired by

Mode Media Glam.com (formerly Mode Media, Inc. Project Y, Glam Media) was a digital lifestyle media company where content was produced by anyone but reviewed by professional editors prior to publishing. In 2013, Mode Media had a valuation of about $1 billi ...

Features

Ning allows users to create their own communities and social networks around specific interests with their own visual design, choice of features and member data. Ning provides several core features, including opportunities for monetization, integration with other social networks, chat, email services, forums, polls and analytics. Customers are also able to map a Ning social network to a custom

domain Domain may refer to: Mathematics *Domain of a function, the set of input values for which the (total) function is defined **Domain of definition of a partial function **Natural domain of a partial function **Domain of holomorphy of a function * Do ...

. The social networks running on Ning's service are programmed with

PHP PHP is a general-purpose scripting language geared toward web development. It was originally created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1993 and released in 1995. The PHP reference implementation is now produced by The PHP Group ...

and the platform itself is built in

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...

.Andreessen: PHP succeeding where Java isn't
by Stephen Shankland, CNET News, Oct 19, 2005 Since October 2010, social networks using Ning can be administered through an

iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...

application.Just one more thing…
Evan Goldin on October 20, 2010 In February 2018, Ning launched a monetization platform, enabling users to earn an income from their social websites.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ning (Website) PHP software American social networking websites Companies based in Palo Alto, California Companies established in 2005

History

Features

See also

References

External links